This kind of knee-jerk tribalism is why we have problems.
(If you think that only right-wingers can be morons…)
7 Likes
Yup, goes back at least to ancient Greece. See Agamemnon returning home in the Oresteia.
2 Likes
You all do realize that Rob is making fun of people who reduce politics to a chart, right?
1 Like
Shhhhh.
Later today I will be unveiling The Electoral Ringpiece
4 Likes
Somebody bough The Donald a donut?
ETA: scooped, dammit. Fuck all y’all.
One ring to rule them all? One ring to bind them?
Is it a cock ring or the boring regular kind?
2 Likes
Is that anything like the Electoral Codpiece?
Is it yuuuge?
6 Likes
One thing about this chart that I approve of is the idea of putting morons in the middle. In the US independents are to the left of the democrats. I think there is this false notion that thoughtful people don’t pick sides, but often one side is just right - or at the very least, given any starting set of values and principles, one side will be right. Some swing voters are genuinely balancing complex issues of importance to themselves, but most of them are people who lack principles, attention span and memory, and vote for whichever party most recently bought them off.
tl:dr:
Just before the last Canadian election the Conservative party played probably one of the most crass tricks I’ve ever seen in politics. They increased a benefit that goes to people with children by $60 per child per month while decreasing a tax benefit that previously went to people with children, the net result was about four to six dollars per child per month for each person. They, didn’t start given the $60 at the beginning of the year, however, opting to instead wait until just before the election call to hand out seven months worth of checks all at once. People with multiple children were getting checks for hundreds and even thousands in the mail - 80-90% of which would have to be paid back at tax time.
This caused them to surge in the polls into majority government territory (which is high 30’s). They ended up doing much worse when the actual vote happened about four months later, but it’s not like their popularity crashed when people realized it was a trick, it’s just that the surge for handing out money is short-lived - they needed to hand out those checks closer to voting day to have a real effect (and they weren’t really in a position to, and they probably would have lost anyway because after 10 years in power people were just sick of them). The “swing voters” who are actually choosing between one party and the other are just waiting to be bought, even when the payoff is a cheap trick.
2 Likes
My favorite part of your post is the part after TL;DR: is longer than the part before it.
7 Likes
I meant to indicate that the remainder of the post was too long and should not be read. But I guess if that’s what I mean to indicate I should probably just put it at the front of pretty much everything I write.
3 Likes
But the Tory colour is blue (Labour have red, presumably because they’re the most socialist, Lib-Dems are orange because it clashes with both blue and red, SNP are yellow for some reason and the Greens are green because being vegetarian leaves you with no energy for imagination).
And Americans would know this, had we any representation in Parliament.
3 Likes
(the forthcoming text is) Too Long; (kindly) Don’t (feel pressured to) Read:
Forget that. They can see the block of text. They don’t want to commit, then don’t. You don’t need to preface it with a disclaimer. Your opinion is as valid as anyone’s.
ETA - if being verbose is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Hey, you know the name of at least one UK political party, that’s got to put you in the top 10% of Yanks just for knowing that!
I’d be feeling pretty good about myself if I could remember more than a handful of parties from any European countries.
It’s accidental; US history books use the term ‘Tory’ as a synonym for ‘British Loyalist’ when teaching the Revolution.
Most continental parties I’ve read about have some combination of ‘Christian’ ‘Democratic’ ‘Worker’s’ ‘Green’ ‘Council’. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a party in Finland with that exact set of words in that order.
Oh also there are more than a few creepy parties that are into naming themselves after abstract symbols.
Thank you for not using goatse there!
2 Likes
